ROBERT PATTINSON AND KRISTEN STEWART FLEE PAPARAZZI IN L.A.

Most of what we cover is relatively harmless. Who’s dating whom, who’s been cast in what, what did a tabloid pull out of its you-know-where… keeping the celebrity news media honest is usually light business.

This is not one of those stories.

According to TMZ, Robert Pattinson andKristen Stewart were driving home from LAX airport in Los Angeles when they noticed paparazzi on their tail, “weaving through traffic.” Sources say the pair stopped into a police station to ask for help, and cops, fortunately, were able to shepherd them safely back on to the road.

Pattinson and Stewart finished their trip without further incident.

That’s the happy ending to a disturbing story.

But part of what makes it so frightening is that it now seems almost ordinary.

Pattinson himself has been pursued on the road before, he and Stewart have hadphoto bounties placed on them by reckless outlets, and paps have often turned their film shoots into spectacle.

They’ve handled the circus responsibly, as do most of the celebrities subjected to an escalating paparazzi culture driven toward greater and greater immediacy. But luck and alertness go only so far.

At some point, someone — Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears,someone — will not see the weaving paparazzi until the terrible moment when the star, the photographer, or the mom whose minivan happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time gets hurt.

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